Letter: Plymouth's national monument to liberty

On one of our summer trips, we traveled to Plymouth; we didn't go to see Plymouth Rock, but the monument. The national monument is an 81-foot tall granite structure that was built in 1889 to honor our pilgrim forefathers. The monument stands only a single mile from the center of Plymouth and is situated on a hill overlooking ...

On one of our summer trips, we traveled to Plymouth; we didn’t go to see Plymouth Rock, but the monument. The national monument is an 81-foot tall granite structure that was built in 1889 to honor our pilgrim forefathers. The monument stands only a single mile from the center of Plymouth and is situated on a hill overlooking the Plymouth Harbor. When it was built 125 years ago, the monument could be seen for miles; today the monument is almost invisible to anyone in Plymouth and is forgotten in our history.

The monument has a granite figure that stands on top of a replica of the Plymouth Rock; the figure identified as faith, points to the heavens while the other hand holds onto the Bible. The Pilgrims set out from England in 1620 to escape from religious persecution by the King of England. It was their faith in God that led them to find a place where they could practice their religion in freedom; it was the Word of God that sustained them through that first difficult winter in Plymouth.

Underneath the large figure of faith are four smaller figures that describe our forefathers’ strategy to obtain and keep our freedom.

The first figure is called morality; its left hand holds an open Bible while the right hand holds the 10 Commandments. The next figure describes the necessity for law which balances justice and mercy. The third figure identifies the need for education for our youth. The final figure shows that liberty triumphs over tyranny. Liberty followed when the original settlers relied on their Bibles to recognize right and wrong, incorporated that understanding into constitutional law, and built Harvard and Yale to teach these values to their children.

The national monument to our forefathers still stands in Plymouth, but it is now hidden by trees and buildings. I encourage anyone who visits Plymouth to find the monument and be reminded that America’s treasured liberty was founded on a simple faith in God.